Huh

[farla]

Just got a spat of reviews on Inheritors. First one initially messaged me about the grammar guide and then reviews the first three chapters, then a second pops up and reviews the first two, then on chapter four an anon appears to explain:

After reading some other reviews, there seems to be general agreement that
Deus and the others are something related to Mew. I don't know the details; I
didn't read much. I haven't seen any real evidence that that would be the
case. If you expected everyone to get it by chapter 4, you didn't provide
enough hints. Is this a social experiment like Lucki? Did you actually
expect people to get it?

Which is especially weird given that, well, look at the page. Aside from the other random anons, only one person is confused, everyone else is talking about mewtwo.

This is hardly the only weirdness in stuff I'm seeing over there, though I'm not exactly sure what's going on.

In brighter news someone added Pokemon Revolution to the TvTropes rec page and already there is brewing crazy. Dunno if anything'll come of it - TvTropes seems depressingly lacking in true drama. Also, once again I'm credited as sole author.

Basically done with the next section of the guide.

Comments

[negrek.livejournal.com]

Possibly more people are confused by Inheritors than is made obvious by the reviews; after all, reviewers are a self-selecting sample and some people probably wouldn't want to admit that they don't get it/don't want to guess in case they're wrong. Of course, if they read reviews other people had been giving, I'd expect them to figure it out pretty fast. Given the stuff that I've seen people not get in fanfiction, I would be surprised if a huge percentage of people managed to pick it up by chapter four without getting clues from other reviewers.

Pokémon Revolution's been on the recs page a long time, actually; just didn't have any comments until recently.

Comment was made by this guy (who is also this guy), if you hadn't seen.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Possibly more people are confused by Inheritors than is made obvious by the reviews; after all, reviewers are a self-selecting sample and some people probably wouldn't want to admit that they don't get it/don't want to guess in case they're wrong.

Oh, I'm sure. But it's weird to get a review starting off with "so I read the other reviews..." when the page of reviews below them has everyone but one saying it's mewtwo. I mean maybe they're saying they aren't convinced those people are right, but they're at chapter four presumably replying to the author's note, which said "if you look at the reviews, most people got it".

...also, is he using a deviantart account just to post fiction?

[negrek.livejournal.com]

I mean maybe they're saying they aren't convinced those people are right, but they're at chapter four presumably replying to the author's note, which said "if you look at the reviews, most people got it".

I don't know, to me it looked like a complaint that you didn't put in enough clues as to what pokémon Deus and company are and an implication that they don't believe many people are getting it, whatever your reviews may say. "Maybe some people get it, but I don't think you did a good job of setting it up."

Or who knows, seeing as it otherwise consists of such bafflers as "I don't know the details; I didn't read much."

...also, is he using a deviantart account just to post fiction?

So it would appear. May the internet have mercy on his soul.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Huh, yeah, that might be it. My only quibble with that would be I didn't say everyone would get it, and that's well within margin of error for even a regular review.

There's something about Inheritors that really sets some people off, I guess.

[purplekitte.livejournal.com]

What with most people only knowing it from your ff.net site and you currently doing the rewrites of it, people could miss the co-written note pretty easily. The original version clearly jumped between two writing styles, so people had less of an excuse. And for all I recall you might both have put authors' notes on it.

[farla.livejournal.com]

People managed to pay attention to the writing style closely enough to notice the switch between British and American English. And then bitch at me for all my "spelling errors". You might be right that having massive alternating author's notes last time helped awareness, but last time it seemed everyone got it, this time basically no one.

Kind of like how last time everyone was rooting for the pokemon no matter what I did. It's depressing to think things have gotten dumber from that point.

[purplekitte.livejournal.com]

Those who were rooting for anyone and not in "you're raping my childhood" mode anyway. And you tried so hard with chapter 29 too.

[farla.livejournal.com]

There was surprisingly little childhood rape complaints back then, as I recall.

And yeah. I'm thinking I probably need the equivilent chapter with nothing but hammering in humans-are-bastards, but then, Ch29 didn't work, and it's not like the early chapters aren't already chock full of humans being bastards. I even said they were vivisecting puppies, and still it's bitching about how OMG how dare they kill humans.

[purplekitte.livejournal.com]

The complaints were there, just the specific wording as I recall was "The humans/Ash/pokemon would never do that. OMG humans and pokemon are friends!" Evidentially their older relatives didn't refer to their pokemon games exclusively as "teaching kids cock-fighting," and now there are some people out there who just can't see it.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Ah, yeah. I should look through, mostly I remember it being centered on Ash's characterization, which is more understandable, rather than OMG WHY ARE THERE SHADES OF GREY IN MY POKEMON FANFIC HALP I CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHO TEH GOOD GUYS ARE!!!11 Although I may just have skimmed over those at the time.

[dioschorium.livejournal.com]

Some people are just...too angry to pay attention to on TV Tropes.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on, he's awesome! When I saw that, I knew I had to get back to work on the next chapter. It's not every day you can really know you're raping someone's childhood.

Plus, I'm like the only one on the whole page to get a rec where the summary is ambivalent and the second comment is a stunning rec for how terrible and traumatizing the story is. The rest of them just got lame normal recs.

[logophilia.livejournal.com]

"Eon is probably the most unlikable Pokemon OC ever, and is exactly half the reason this troper no longer likes OC fics."

So wait shouldn't he be sending you flowers in the mail or something for sparing him 98% of the Pokemon fic section on FF.net?

[farla.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately for him, that includes his own fanfics. (Also, the other 2% is just crappy romance.)